This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

There’s really only one reason why people go to Daytona Beach, Fla., and that’s the Daytona Speedway.

The city can boast all it wants about its cultural attractions and its centres of historical significance but — sorry — the vast majority of the eight million tourists who flock to the northeast Florida Atlantic Coast community every year are not planning to tour the Museum of Arts and Sciences or listen to the Daytona Beach Symphony.

They’re there for the world’s most famous stock car race, the Daytona 500, the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, for sports cars and Bike Week, when hundreds of thousands of motorcycle riders roll into town to eat, drink and merrily show off.

All of those motorsport events — the Daytona 200 motorcycle race on the big track is the highlight of Bike Week and let’s not forget the Coke Zero 400 NASCAR race on or near July 4 every year as well as Biketoberfest every October — take place at or around the massive, 4.02336-km. (2.5-mile), Daytona International Speedway, which was built in 1959 to get racers and race cars off the famous beach, itself, where automotive activities had been taking place going back to 1902.

Article Continued Below

If all that isn’t enough, the International Speedway Corp. (ISC), owners of the NASCAR stock-car-sanctioning organization as well as the Daytona Speedway and a dozen other race tracks and superspeedways in the United States, is planning more speed-focused attractions in the form of One Daytona, a retail, residential, dining and entertainment complex that will soon be under construction on nearly 81 hectares (200 acres) of land it owns directly across the street from the race track.

One Daytona will be built by ISC in partnership with — among others — Bass Pro Shops, and ground will be broken on the project this spring. The first phase is expected to open for business in 2016 at about the same time a $400-million renovation of the Daytona Speedway, itself, will be finished.

The speedway — known as the World Centre of Racing and home of the Great American Race — had its beginnings in the early 1950s, after NASCAR founder, Bill France, was denied a garage credential at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Or so the story goes.

When this happened, it’s alleged, he vowed to get even by building a speedway that was just as big as Indy, but would be made significantly faster by banking the turns.

He couldn’t have been too angry with the Indianapolis Speedway people, however, because the Indy cars were invited to race at the brand new facility in 1959, the year it opened. But after two famous drivers were killed when they crashed (Marshall Teague and George Amick) because the Indy cars were so much faster than the stock cars at the time, the Indy cars left Daytona and never returned.

Which is a good thing because the NASCAR stock cars in action today are rockets, racing around the place at an average speed of 322 kilometres an hour (200 mph), and the sport of stock car racing is now one of the most popular in the world.

More than 300 km/h is a far cry from how fast the cars were going when they first ventured out onto the beach at Daytona in 1902.

Because of the 37-km.-long beach’s wide, packed, sand surface, automobile and motorcycle racers started competing there shortly after the turn of the last century. In 1904, the first land speed record attempt was made by William Vanderbilt, who went 148.554 km/h (92.307 mph). Other attempts were made, often resulting in fatal accidents, up until 1935, when Sir Malcolm Campbell set the record of 445.492 km/h (276.816 mph) that has never been beaten because no more attempts were allowed on the sand at Daytona.

Stock cars started racing on a paved road/beach course the following year and continued until France, who created NASCAR in 1947 at a meeting at a Daytona Beach hotel, announced, in 1953, his dream of a superspeedway that became reality in 1959 when the doors opened and the first Daytona 500 was held.

That first Great American Race was won by Lee Petty, father of stock car’s racing’s King, Richard Petty. Richard, who was known as Dick Petty in those days, finished 57th out of 59 starters while a Canadian modified champion from Quebec finished 32nd.

Richard (Dick) Foley of Baie D’Urfe, Que., drove in the Daytona Beach sand races in 1957 and ’58 but hated the experience. “You couldn’t see a thing half the time,” he once told me in an interview. “You’d get out on the sand and the salt would cake up on the windshield and you’d be driving blind. You’d have to guess when to turn left to get off the beach and up on the road again.”

When he started racing on the paved superspeedway, however, it was like a duck taking to water. “I was at home,” he said.

Foley made the field for the second Daytona 500 in 1960 before retiring as a driver, but his main claim to fame — if you want to call it that — came that year in a modified sportsman race at the speedway a week before the big race: He triggered a crash that to this day is the biggest in NASCAR history. Of the 68 cars that started the race, 37 were involved and 24 were declared total wrecks once the smoke cleared. Fortunately, nobody was seriously hurt.

“I just had a little spin and before you knew it, everybody else started crashing,” he said.

There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since 1960. From what was a relatively small, regional spectator sport centred in the U.S. Deep South, NASCAR exploded in the 1970s, thanks to government interference in the marketplace.

In 1971, Congress made it illegal for cigarettes to be advertised on television, radio and in newspapers and magazines. Manufacturers such as the R.J. Reynolds tobacco company started to look around to find some place to invest the tens of millions of dollars on promotion that they’d previously spent on TV and print advertising. They settled on NASCAR and started what came to be known as the Winston Cup Series.

Winston cigarettes became the best-selling cigarette in the U.S., as a result, and other corporations took notice. By the end of the 20th Century, every major American corporation had an involvement in NASCAR: Goodyear, Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Tide (surveys showed nearly half the NASCAR audience was made up of women), Proctor & Gamble, Home Depot, and on and on and on.

When Darrell Waltrip won the first race of the NASCAR season in 1979, his words in Victory Lane summed up Corporate America’s involvement in NASCAR. Said Waltrip, “I’d like to thank God, Goodyear and Gatorade.”

Following the death of Dale Earnhardt in the 2001 Daytona 500, however, things started to go backwards for NASCAR. Some observers suggest that corporations like car racing until somebody gets killed, and then they don’t like it so much any more. It will likely take some PhD. student in sociology to figure definitively that one out, but the fact remains that the 2015 Daytona 500, scheduled to be run Sun., Feb. 22, will be the last held before that $400-million renovation mentioned earlier really kicks in.

And why a renovation? Because attendance at NASCAR races is on the decline. (Television ratings are holding relatively steady, but even they are not as healthy as they were 20 years ago.) While NHL and Major League Baseball teams can play in front of half-empty arenas or stadiums and nobody seems to notice, or care, a commercially driven sport such as auto racing can’t afford to have empty seats at races, because sponsors see them and ask themselves why they’re spending so much money to support a sport where the interest obviously isn’t there any more.

NASCAR and the ISC have reacted by downsizing and cleverly renovating. More than 45,000 seats along the Daytona Speedway backstretch have either been removed or will soon be gone. The front grandstands will be renovated (work of which has already started) and sizes of the seats expanded from 17-18 inches to 20-21 inches.

More than 50 suites will be built. Five new entrances will lead fans to what officials are calling 11 “social neighbourhoods.” Each “neighbourhood” will be the size of a football field and fans will be urged to mingle and socialize during races and other events. They won’t miss any of the on-track action, however, because dozens of video screens will keep them informed and entertained.

It’s a brilliant concept. No longer will sponsors worry about empty seats — there will be a few more than 100,000 in total (down from 147,000) when work is completed — because that’s part of the plan. And the fan experience will be improved because, when it’s 25C out and the sun is burning you to a crisp, you can leave your seat and go to your air-conditioned “neighbourhood.” If it rains, you can get out of the weather the same way.

ISC and NASCAR have acted to save their core business. But they’re hedging their bets, too, by getting into land development with the One Daytona project.

It’s all supposed to be finished and done with by 2016, which is just a year away. Just like in racing, there’s no time to lose.

Norris McDonald is editor of Toronto Star Wheels and the Star’s motorsport correspondent. Read his racing reports and motorsport blog at thestar.com/autos

2015 Daytona Schedule

Jan. 24-25 — Rolex 24 at Daytona. The Rolex 24 is one of North America’s premier sports cars races. Patterned after the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans, it’s the only 24-hour race on the continent. A large number of Canadian drivers always contest the event.

Feb. 14 — Lucas Oil 200. It’s a race where dreams can come true. Or not. The biggest race of the year for the ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards will showcase the talents of a bunch of young drivers on the way up and one or two winding up their careers. It’s always great fun.

Feb. 14 — Sprint Unlimited. Last season’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole winners take on past-event pole sitters and winners in a star-studded launch to the NASCAR season. It’s the night half of the ARCA/NASCAR doubleheader and it’s a take-no-prisoners, winner-takes-all shootout.

Feb. 15 — Daytona 500 Qualifying. Everybody entered in this year’s Great American Race gets his or her shot at winning the pole. But despite suggesting that the single-car, two-lap qualifying runs that have been tradition since 1959 would be maintained, NASCAR has decided that starting this year, the group qualifying format will be used to set the front row positions. According to the Daytona Speedway, the results from qualifying will also set the field for the Budweiser Duel At Daytona 150-mile qualifying races on Thurs., Feb. 19, and the results from the Budweiser Duel will finalize the starting lineup for the Daytona 500.

Feb. 19 — Duel at Daytona. See paragraph above for rules and regulations.

Feb. 22 — Daytona 500. This will be the 57th renewal of the Great American Race. The backstretch seats are coming down and renovation work on the front grandstand is under way, so you have a choice of sitting in one of the brand-new seats at the Daytona Speedway or one of the new and improved (wider, more comfy) seats. Either way, if you buy now, you can guarantee your seat for the 2016 Daytona 500, which is the first time you’ll be able to enjoy the full results of the $400-million renovation.

Mar. 6 to 14 — Bike Week. According to the Daytona Speedway website, motorcycle enthusiasts can take part in this famous spring tradition with activities on and off the track, highlighted by the Daytona Supercross on Sat., March 7, the Daytona Flat Track doubleheader on Mar. 12-13 and the 74th running of the Daytona 200 on Sat., Mar. 14. Be sure to stop by the speedway to stroll through the area’s largest motorcycle marketplace, featuring free demo rides, K and G Cycles Thunder Alley, displays and vendors.

July 5 — Coke Zero 400 Presented by Coca-Cola. What started life as the Firecracker 400 has been rebranded, but traditionalists still call it by its original name. The 57th renewal of this iconic NASCAR Sprint Cup race will be held Sunday evening, but, in 2016, it will revert to its traditional Saturday night slot.

Oct. 15-18 — Daytona Biketoberfest. October is an amazing time to visit Daytona Beach — not too hot, not too humid. Soak up the sun, listen to live music and watch the pros compete in Daytona International Speedway's motorcycle races.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com